Posts Tagged ‘Abortion’
“Businessman behind smears against Jim Gavin previously spread false claims about rival” – Irish Times report on Kieran Kelly, far-right targeter of Irish presidential candidate
Far-right activist Maria Steen, who failed to secure a nomination for the 2025 Irish presidential election, agrees she spoke with Kieran Kelly.
The 2025 Irish presidential election is toxic and dirty, and that is going to continue, TrumpSteen or no TrumpSteen.
“When contacted by The Irish Times on Monday, (Kieran Kelly) declined to share any evidence for the claims, saying it would be made available at a later date.
Mr Kelly said online that he had a call this month with Maria Steen, the conservative campaigner trying to enter the presidential election.
Ms Steen confirmed the call during a press conference on Tuesday.
She said: “As you can imagine, I’ve been getting calls from lots of different people who I have never met before and have never spoken to before.
“I had a call with Kieran Kelly. He mentioned nothing about Jim Gavin or any other candidate to me. He talked about, I think, that there’s an organisation called the Wild Geese, of Irish people abroad, who are taking an interest in Irish politics.
“That was the sum total of the phone call. I listened to what he had to say, and that was it.”
- Cormac McQuinn and Pat Leahy Irish Times, September 23 2025
The left-wing candidate Catherine Connolly needs to promote a positive anti-racist message.
The absence of Steen from the presidential ballot paper is tempting government coalition partners Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to play the racist card in support of their candidates Jim Gavin and Heather Humphreys.
Read the rest of this entry »Yes, RFK Jr. (USA Health Secretary in the Trump-Vance Government) took grandkids swimming in sewage-contaminated creek on Mother’s Day 2025 – News from a reliable source, Snopes Fact-Check
The internet is plagued with false and dubious stories. A great resource for fact-checking is Snopes. Many readers, including this one, thought the claim headlined here could not possibly be true – the facts suggest the opposite.
Yes, RFK Jr. took grandkids swimming in sewage-contaminated creek on Mother’s Day 2025
The U.S. Secretary of Health posted one photo of himself surrounded by his family as he fully immersed himself in the contaminated creek’s water.
Link :
Trump’s Health Boss RFK Junior Swimming in Polluted Creek
RFK Junior has form :
MMR vaccine doesn’t contain ‘a lot of aborted fetus debris,’ contrary to RFK Jr.’s assertion
The claim stems from a misunderstanding of how the MMR vaccine is produced.
Link :
MMR vaccine doesn’t contain ‘a lot of aborted fetus debris,’ contrary to RFK Jr.’s assertion
If this Irish-American ever visits Ireland again, he should be boycotted.
John Meehan May 15 2025
Obituary: Cathleen O’Neill, witty, irreverent and tireless activist, author and advocate for social change – Lorna Siggins
We are delighted to publish a second tribute to Cathleen O’Neill on this blog – this time written by Lorna Siggins for the Sunday Independent, May 11 2025.
A link is here :
Cathleen O’Neill Tribute, by Lorna Siggins; Witty, Irreverent, Tireless Activist, Author, Advocate for Social Change – Sunday Independent
Cathleen’s Death Notice is here ;
Cathleen O’Neill, Death Notice, RIP.IE
All who attended the funeral will remember the hilarious stories and moving tributes. Cathleen, in lock-step with her campaigning friend and activist Joan Byrne, was fearless.
Cathleen O’Neill, who has died aged 76, was a witty, irreverent and tireless activist, author and advocate for social change whose passion for education and opportunity transformed countless lives.
Described as an “organic intellectual” by Professor Kathleen Lynch of UCD, she said she was one of a rare few experts whose ideas were informed by their own working-class background. She was born and reared in Ballyfermot, Dublin, as the eldest of 13 children, but said in an Irish Times interview in September 2012 that her life “began at 33”.
Read the rest of this entry »Elections (USA): Making Sense of Trump’s Victory & the Necessary Resistance – Frieda Afary
Frieda Afary has written an excellent analysis (see below). She shows that the Democratic party candidate Kamala Harris lost 10 million votes compared with Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. Trump’s vote totals in 2020 and 2024 were almost identical.
Source :
Elections (USA): Making Sense of Trump’s Victory & the Necessary Resistance (ESSF)
This article analyzes the vote breakdown, the pundits’ views, argues that Trump is a fascist and offers perspectives for the needed anti-fascist resistance.
Donald Trump’s election as president, and the Republican victories nationwide are a catastrophe for progressive forces in the U.S. and around the world. What the November 5, 2024 election showed was that while this country is still divided, there has been a rightward shift nationwide and across all demographic and geographic groups. (Levitt, 2024)
Vote Breakdown:
Let’s take a closer look at the demographic breakdown of the votes. Approximately 72 million voted for Harris and 75 million voted for Trump. Approximately 700,000 voted for Jill Stein and 700,000 voted for Robert Kennedy. This means that Democrats received 10 million fewer votes than in 2020 when Biden received 81 million. Trump received approximately the same number of votes he received in 2020. (U.S. Election Results, 2024)
Read the rest of this entry »Robert Ballagh’s “The Thirtieth of January”: A Bloody Sunday Painting and the Troubles in the Two Bits of Ireland
In this interview the artist Robert Ballagh discusses the painting “The Thirtieth of January”, depicting Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972. The conversation provides valuable insights into Ballagh’s personal experiences and artistic process, shedding light on the political and social context of the time.
The interview provides a unique insight into the historical and cultural significance of the painting.
Critical issues related to the Irish government’s response to the conflict, the impact of the Bloody Sunday event, and the broader social and political implications are highlighted. Ballagh’s commentary on the role of the Irish government, the impact on nationalist communities, and the establishment of the Special Criminal Court adds depth to the discussion.
Bloody Sunday Painting – the Thirtieth of January – Robert Ballagh
Thursday, January 20 2022. John Meehan interviews the artist Robert Ballagh in Number Five Arbour Hill.
We are talking about Robert’s painting : The Thirtieth of January, a representation of Bloody Sunday in Derry, January 30 1972.
John Meehan :
Why did you zone in on Derry’s Bloody Sunday , and put so much effort into making this painting? What makes it different from so many other big events during “The Troubles” in the north of Ireland, which lasted for 30 years, from 1968 to 1998?
Robert Ballagh
Well, it’s a long time ago now 50 years, but I have to say that it had an enormous effect on me, and I don’t think I’m alone with that historical experience. I suppose one thing I should say, I was only thinking about this, and I haven’t said anything about this experience to others. I’m a Dubliner. I’ve lived all my life in Dublin. But unlike most Dubliners – it wasn’t by design – I had an extraordinary rich knowledge of the North of Ireland, before the conflict began. Because I was a professional musician in a showband. We used to play at least once or twice a week in the north. So I was in every town village or city in the north that had a ballroom or ballrooms. And so I experienced the reality of life in that society, and became very aware of the sectarian differences, shall we say – the nature of the society, which people didn’t appreciate at all. I tell one very short story to illustrate that. We played fairly regularly in one of the very popular ballrooms in Belfast : Romano’s in Queen Street. We developed quite a following! In the show business vernacular the word groupie was used. These girls used follow us, they came down to Dublin once or twice to hear us. And we were playing one night in Romano’s.
After the dance, they came up and we’re talking to us. They asked “When are you playing again in Belfast?”.
I remember saying “Oh, I think we’re here next week.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah – we’re playing in a ballroom called the Astor” which I knew was in Smithfield.
And they said, “Oh, we can’t go there.” And I said, “Why?” – because it was a public ballroom. It wasn’t attached to any organization or anything. It was a public ballroom.
They said, “Oh, no, that’s a taig hall”
And it was the first time I realized, and we realized, that our fan base in Belfast was Protestant.
Nurses for Choice Warn Against “Wait Period” in Proposed 8th Amendment Draft Legislation
Nurses for Choice Express Concern over “Wait Period” in Abortion Legislation
Voluntary organisation Nurses for Choice have spoken out on the “wait period” between initial meeting with GP and receiving a termination proposed to be included in Irish abortion law in the event that the eighth amendment is repealed this May. The organisation has stated that waiting periods only act as barriers to healthcare in the hope it decreases needs of abortions, but have proven to be harmful. Nurses for Choice representative Joanna Hickey said “Abortion healthcare should be evidence based in practice and not based in myth in that time constraints somehow benefit the pregnant person.”
They have welcomed the introduction of the 36th amendment and Minister Simon Harris’s statements regarding the need for immediate change. Representative Rachel Egan stated; “We are encouraged to see evidence based information used to support the argument against retaining the eighth amendment. We too believe in trusting women to make their own healthcare choices and granting all patients their bodily autonomy”
Nurses for Choice representative Joanna Hickey stated “Nurses care for a wide and diverse range of patients of reproductive age who are experiencing serious and difficult health issues in which pregnancy cannot be an option for them. As advocates for these patients we believe it is imperative that we repeal the eighth amendment.”
Rachel Egan added, “Forcing women to travel to avail of abortion has been shown to have negative effects on the person’s psychological, physical, social and financial wellbeing. We believe the constitution is not the correct place to contain laws regarding a private and personal matter, and the pregnant person’s choice should be made by them alone in conjunction with appropriate medical professionals.”
Nurses for Choice is group of nurses campaigning for a change in the constitution to allow women access to free, safe and legal abortion here in Ireland. We ask for any nurses who wish to participate in the campaign to repeal the eighth amendment to get in touch via nurses4choice@gmail.com or by joining their local pro-choice group.
X Case – Anti-abortionists restrictions must be rejected
Joan Collins TD, Clare Daly TD
Statement – 4 Feb 2013 – immediate release
Legislate for X Case
Anti-abortionists restrictions must be rejected
The delay of a memo to Cabinet regarding the forthcoming legislation on abortion shows that pressure from the anti-abortion minority must be rejected, said Clare Daly TD and Joan Collins TD.
Joan Collins said:
“The suggestion that the opinions four or five medical practitioners should be required to approve a medical treatment – in this case abortion – to remove a risk to a woman’s life, is an attempt to make abortion inaccessible in practise.
The idea that a despairing woman or girl, driven to consider suicide as a means to escape the trauma of continuing a pregnancy she truly cannot face, would be able or willing to go through four or five medical assessments is a cruel denial of the reality of such a situation. Confronted with such restrictions, any woman who could afford it would travel abroad for an abortion. Poorer women, girls, or those too ill to travel would face obstructions that could drive them over the edge.”
Clare Daly went on:
“A maximum of two medical practitioners, and in an emergency one – should be enough to approve abortion when it is necessary to remove a threat to a woman’s life. And such a threat, as the Chief Justice said in X Case ruling, should not need to be ‘immediate or inevitable’ in order to approve an abortion. The anti-abortion minority must not be allowed continue to impose other restrictions – which could put women’s lives at risk.
Delays in the introduction of legislation for X – which is very restrictive and would only apply in the few instances where lives are threatened – shows the need to repeal Art 40.3.3 from the Constitution to make abortion an issue of medical treatment to be decided by a woman in consultation with her doctor.”
—————————
More on the Government’s Foot-Dragging Here :
What Do We Not Talk About When We Do Not Talk About Abortion?
http://www.claredaly.ie/what-do-we-not-talk-about-when-we-do-not-talk-about-abortion/#more-1333
if it were finally accepted that the old Church-State complex was no longer the dominant force in Ireland, the way would be paved for a very awkward discussion; what should be the dominant ideology in Ireland? How should the state relate to class and gender? Who should hold power and, more importantly, who should have power taken away from them?
And so we get Lucinda Creighton, Enda Kenny, and many other politicians who ordinarily are full supporters of free-choice (as long as it is the limited neo-liberal kind of free choice in the market place) clamouring to strictly control this debate, to not pass legislation for as long as possible, and, whenever they do finally pass legislation, to make sure it is as limited in scope as possible. This practiced silence and inactivity is a conscious strategy, based on the idea that by not talking about abortion, they might be able to also prevent us all from talking about all these other issues, of power, class and sex.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 